


Driving Home on Empty Streets

by knittycat99



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Crack Pairing, F/M, M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:18:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittycat99/pseuds/knittycat99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Senior Year isn't turning out the way Kurt had planned.  When Rachel hatches a plan to escape for a night, unexpected complications arise.  Blurring the line between friends and lovers, choice versus obligation, and finding yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This bit of ridiculousness came from speculation about who would be having sex in The First Time. nubianamy said, "what if it's Kurt and Rachel?" and my brain went crazy. Enjoy.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Rachel just looked so miserable when she'd cornered him in the girl's room. It wasn't like he'd been in any position to argue, because there was nothing dignified about needing help rinsing electric blue slushie off the back of one's neck. And, if he were being honest, he wasn't spectacularly happy himself. What was supposed to be their crowning glory, the absolute perfection of their senior year, was crumbling under both of their feet.

And it hurt.

Rachel's hand was small, and soft, and it felt odd because Blaine had taken over slushie-cleaning duty from the girls back in September. "I think," she mused, "that we need to go out tonight. Do something fun. Just the two of us."

Kurt shook his head and startled when he whacked the back of his skull on the faucet of the sink. His voice was garbled under the running water. "Fine. But no talking about the play, or Glee. Or NYADA.  _Please_ no NYADA."

"Oh. Don't worry. None of those things." There was something playful in her tone, and if Kurt hadn't been a slave to her hand and the damn chunks of icy corn syrup, he would have fixed her with his best Judgmental Queen look and demanded that she spill the beans. Instead he just waited until she had dried him the best she could with paper towels and they were packing up his wet clothes into a plastic bag.

"You have a plan, don't you?"

"Pick me up at 7." She patted him on the shoulder before turning and flouncing to the door. Before the hall swallowed her, she looked back at him and grinned devilishly. "Be prepared to miss curfew, and wear something hot!"

* * *

Kurt wasn't sure what exactly what Rachel meant by  _wear something hot_ , but he figured the tighter the better. He could barely slide his license and two folded twenties into his pocket, and he hoped that Rachel would at least have a purse for his keys. He stalked through the kitchen at 6:45, past his dad with the sports section and Carole with the crossword, and he didn't correct Carole when she told him to have fun and say hi to Blaine. He pulled up in front of Rachel's house at 6:58, and she was through the door and down the walk before he even honked the horn.

Wearing a skin-tight black dress that was shorter than Santana's Cheerio skirt.

She climbed up into the passenger seat, and Kurt couldn't help but let out a low whistle. "You look hot," he said, with no teasing in his voice.  
He felt her eyes on him, taking in his tight black t-shirt and the jeans he'd bought in New York that he hadn't worn out of the house yet. Or for anyone. Not even Blaine.

"Wow." Her voice was hushed with something Kurt didn't want to think about. He knew it was the way Blaine should talk to him, but didn't. And the way he should talk to and about Blaine, but couldn't.

It sent a little shiver across the back of his neck.

He flipped his iPod over to Rachel and told her to take care of music, but only after she told him where they were going.

She talked as she scrolled through his playlists. " _We_  are going to Dayton.  _We_  are going to dinner and then dancing at an all-ages club, and  _we_ ," she paused for dramatic effect, "are going to stay out all night!"

Kurt felt his foot stutter unconsciously on the brake pedal before his instinct to  _drive_ kicked in. He managed the merge onto the highway south with shaking hands. "But tomorrow is a school day."

"I don't care, Kurt. I don't care about school, or college, or the play. Or even Glee, right now. I just want to have fun." She was near pleading with him, and he understood, he really did.

He reached over and took her hand in his. "I want to have fun, too."

She leaned back against her seat, and didn't let go of his hand even as she asked him about Blaine, and he asked her about Finn. They made a lot of small talk around both subjects, until her voice went small and scared. "He wants more."

"Finn?"

"Yeah. More than I can give, or want to. He wants more of my heart, and I don't even know if  _I_ have enough of myself to give anything away."

It was maybe the most honest Rachel had ever been with him. He squeezed her hand and sighed. "I know. Blaine is just so  _eager_  all the time." He shook his head. "I don't think he understands how  _big_ everything feels right now, how important it all seems even though it's really nothing."

"Is he . . .  _pressuring_ you?"

Kurt let more anger than he had intended creep into his voice. "Is Finn?"

"I think Finn would say no."

"So would Blaine. But."

"But? Yes. I think Finn is pressuring me."

Kurt went silent for a moment, gazed at the lights of the passing cars. Everything about being  _Kurt-and-Blaine_ was complicated; the rocky nature of their physical relationship was only a part of that. Kurt felt constantly like he was playing a game of push me-pull you, and there was never going to be a clear winner. The more he resisted (for reasons that were really just habit now, more than anything) the harder Blaine pushed. And the harder Blaine pushed, the more Kurt resisted. Which was how they had ended up in the fight that resulted in Kurt storming out of the empty dance studio and getting the slushie to his face that had led to meeting Rachel in the girls' room. Which was, in a roundabout way, why he was going dancing in Dayton with Rachel instead of chastely holding hands with Blaine over their eleventy-millionth medium drip and nonfat mocha at the fucking Lima Bean.

"I think," he began after his brain had finished its merry-go-round, "that Blaine is pressuring me, too."

Rachel scooted closer to him, kept hold of his hand, and rested her head on his shoulder over the console. "I'm sorry."

He breathed in the scent of her shampoo as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Me, too."

She stayed there, warm against him, and didn't even bother with music.

* * *

Kurt had been too nervous to eat much dinner, so by the time they arrived at the club he was hungry and jittery and entirely too uncomfortable in his skin. Rachel just held his hand, like they were a perfectly normal straight couple instead of a gay boy and his frienemy, and he bought them Cokes with wedges of lime and didn't move away when she perched herself next to him on the same bar stool. After their sodas were gone, he let her drag him to the dance floor.

He had thought about times like this, had fully expected that he'd go dancing for the first time with Blaine. But it didn't seem wrong, now, to share this with Rachel. Performing together had given them an easy physicality, and Rachel was a good dance partner. Kurt liked leading. It secretly pissed him off that everyone assumed that just because he was gay, he was like the girl in everything. The music was pulsing, and Rachel didn't resist when he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her waist. She didn't resist when he added a little twist to his hips. Instead, she flung her arms around his neck and moved right back against him.

It felt slightly wrong, but also a little bit dirty in all kinds of right ways, and Kurt leaned down and laughed in Rachel's ear. "Thank you."

Her voice rose over the music like bells. "You're welcome, baby."

Kurt's heart stopped for a moment. Blaine didn't even call him that. Blaine didn't call him anything except for  _Kurt_ , like his name was the only prayer in the world. It was fine. It was what it was, but Kurt secretly yearned for more.

Kurt was feeling decidedly flushed and more than a little lightheaded, and when the lights flickered signaling the last song, he understood why. It was after midnight, and he was  _tired_.

"Rach," he murmured, low, over the thumping of a bad 80's remix, "I think I'm too tired to drive home."

She nodded her head against his chest. "S' okay," she said, tightening her arms around his waist. "We're both 18, we can get a room for the night."

"Oh. Right." Kurt hadn't thought about that, but it made a kind of sense that his brain couldn't quite keep up with right then. He just held on, let Rachel hold him up, until the song was over.

* * *

The hotel room was small and dimly lit, but clean. The clerk hadn't blinked at them, had just eyed Rachel's id and swiped her emergency credit card and handed them a key (an actual key on a plastic ring!) before pointing them around the corner and down the hall. Kurt fumbled with the key in the lock, and when he finally got it open they both tumbled through in a jumble of tired, adrenaline-fueled limbs.

Kurt kicked his shoes off and joined Rachel where she had flopped onto the bed. "Thank you," he told her again. "I needed this."

She smiled at him giddily. "I did, too. This was so much fun. And," she shook her head, "we are going to be in so much trouble."

"I don't care right now," he replied, seeking her hand out across the small expanse of comforter between them. "This was so much better than coffee at the Lima Bean and another fight about why I won't give it up."

"Same here. Well, if you replace coffee with puzzle night with my dads." Rachel turned her head to him and looked at him with honest eyes. "The fight, that part sounds the same."

"I wish it didn't have to be that way. I mean, it started small, me not being ready for all of that yet, and now it's this  _thing_  between us _._ "

Rachel's thumb rubbed small circles against his palm, and the motion made him shiver slightly. She rolled up onto her side and peered at him, her eyes tired but dancing.

"Why does it have to be a thing for  _either_ of us?"

Kurt held his breath. "What do you mean?"

She sat completely up, tucking her legs under her as best she could in her miniscule dress. "What if we were each other's first time? It would take some of the pressure off, that way, and then we wouldn't be so nervous with our boyfriends."

Kurt sat up too, and shook his head vehemently. "No. No, absolutely not."

But Rachel's hand was warm on the goose-bumped flesh of his arm, and it felt so nice to be a little less apart from things. So when Rachel closed the space between them and kissed him gently, he didn't pull away. Kissing her was different from kissing Blaine, but it didn't feel  _wrong_.

They were cautious with each other, hands tentative under clothes and gentle along cheeks and jaws and in hair. Kurt liked the way it felt, no pressure or expectations, and it was surprisingly easy to lose himself in the smoothness of Rachel's skin and the way her breath came in hot puffs against his neck when he slid the zipper of her dress down her back. And when he felt her hand drift, tugging at the button on his jeans, he knew it was too late.

He didn't have the energy to fight, didn't have the  _desire_  to fight, because Blaine was  _all_ fight and Rachel was offering him something so uncomplicated that it seemed impossible.

But it wasn't impossible. It was them, together, trembling and breathless, and it was heartbreakingly, terrifyingly real.

After, Kurt pulled the blankets up around them and held Rachel to him, and the nonsense nothings he whispered at her were as much for her as they were for him.

Neither of them slept; instead, they lay awake, wide-eyed and reeling, until Kurt couldn't stand it anymore. He slipped out of the bed and started pulling on his clothes, not ashamed but not sure  _what_ he should be feeling. When he had pulled his t-shirt over his head, he looked back at where Rachel was slipping back into her dress. He didn't know what to say, so he just asked millions of questions with his eyes. Rachel nodded at him, and simply turned so he could zip her dress back up. She held her hair out of the way, and Kurt couldn't help it. Even after what they had done, the gentle intimacy of zipping her dress nearly undid him and he pressed his lips against the warm skin on the back of her neck. He dropped tears there, too, and then Rachel was clinging to him, her own tears dampening the front of his t-shirt.

"I'm not sorry," she sniffled. "I just-"

"I know," Kurt nodded. "I think this is complicated, too. And I think it's okay."

 


	2. Chapter 2

They called for their NYADA auditions together, dialing with shaking hands and taking turns with the phone to explain to the harried woman on the other end that they were each other's transportation into the city (because the indignity of having to explain that the only way either of their families were going to let them go  _to_  the city rather than wait for the larger regional group auditions in Chicago was if they went together was just too much) and so they  _had_ to be on the same weekend.

After some really bad elevator music, she was back on the line relaying brusquely that there had been a handful of cancellations for over Valentine's weekend.

"We'll take it," they chorused into the phone, and then collapsed onto Kurt's bed in giggles because even after the fiascos of West Side Story and class elections, they had  _still_ managed to score auditions.

Blaine and Finn were decidedly unhappy about the timing.

If he were being honest, Kurt really didn't care.

The drive across Pennsylvania was quiet. Rachel kept sipping at her herbal tea with honey and lemon, and shot Kurt angry glances every time he doctored a coffee with too much milk when they stopped for gas and food and leg stretching. "I need my caffeine, Rach," he told her as they sped through the middle of the state, "especially since my dad was adamant that you  _not_ drive."

Rachel just huffed at him and went back to her tea and the sheet music she was trying to memorize.

* * *

Kurt's panel of auditioners were not nearly as intimidating as he'd expected; there was even a student, a mousy girl with striking bright green eyes that should have made him uncomfortable but instead gave him something to focus on besides the butterflies under his ribcage.

They asked for his song first.

Rachel had prepared something new, but Kurt thought his best bet was something he knew. Something he could use to reach the panel, and something that would make him stand out. The only choice was "As If We Never Said Goodbye," because he could act the hell out of it without looking like he was trying too hard, and it made his voice special rather than wrong.

The monologue was another story. He'd prepared more Shakespeare, mostly to prove to himself that he  _could_ do it, but the panel had other ideas.

"We like everyone to do a cold reading," the man in the middle said, pushing his glasses up on his nose and handing Kurt a photocopy. And really, Kurt almost started laughing. Because while he was  _pretty_ sure the panel knew next to nothing about his life, the irony of giving a motherless boy a monologue about a boy with an absent mother was just too much. And please. Kurt had seen the original movie verson of  _Fame_ at least a hundred times.

He could recite the monologue in his sleep.

Except that he couldn't.

He barely got through the first sentence before his throat was tight and he could feel tears at the corners of his eyes.  _I always worry that maybe people aren't going to like me, when I go to a party. Do you ever get kind of a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you dread things?_

It was locker rooms and the stares and the whispers instead of cold barracks, but the emotion was the same, and Kurt knew when he'd finished that he'd left it all there, on the polished wood floor of the dance studio.

He knew he'd done something right, but he still couldn't stop the tears as he closed the door behind him and went to wait for Rachel.

She emerged from her own room mere moments after Kurt had slid down the wall to sit on the floor, tears of her own streaming inelegantly down her face. He handed over a wad of tissue from his pocket, and she slumped down next to him and patted his arm gently. "Oh, well," she gulped through her tears. "At least we know. And thank goodness Miss P. insisted we apply other places, too."

Kurt put his arm around her and let her cry, and listened to his thoughts bouncing in his brain. Because he knew that he had killed his audition, and even though he'd  _told_ everyone he was applying to Kent State and a handful of other schools, he'd only sent in the one application to NYADA. But he couldn't say that, not when Rachel was falling apart on him.

So he said nothing, just rubbed her arm and held her close as they walked to the car, and held her hand through traffic and over the state line into Pennsylvania, until her sobs subsided to sniffles and her eyes drifted closed.

* * *

They hit freezing rain somewhere east of Pittsburgh, and even though Kurt was pretty sure he could drive through, he still pulled off into a rest area and called his dad.

"We've hit some bad weather. Do you want me to keep going, or stop for the night?"

He breathed a sigh of relief at the easiness in his dad's voice. "It's snowing here, kiddo, so whatever you're getting is only going to get worse. Stop. You have your emergency credit card?"

"Yeah, Dad."

"Okay. Get a room, order food, stay safe and dry. Do you want me to call Rachel's dads?"

"That would be great. I'll have her call them later, but she's been sleeping for a while. It was a hard day."

"And your day?"

Kurt sighed into the crackling of his phone. "I'll tell you all about it when I get home."

"Okay, Kurt. I love you, son."

"Me, too, Dad. Thanks."

* * *

Kurt picked the Howard Johnson's because there was an actual restaurant, not just a free continental breakfast, and he figured that since he had the credit card this time, he'd make the decisions. He had to shake Rachel awake in the parking lot, and then they practically skated on the ice in their dress shoes. The desk clerk took in their clothes, their Ohio drivers licences, and their ages, and raised an eyebrow.

Rachel shook her head and laughed. "We're on our way home from college auditions in New York."

"Uh huh." The clerk just shook her head, like she'd seen it all on this stretch of I-76.

"Seriously." Rachel slung her arm around Kurt's waist and grinned at the clerk. "He's gay."

Kurt nodded in all seriousness, and tried not to blush at the idea of Rachel and Dayton. "I am. Totally gay." He pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned it so the clerk could see the main screen, a picture of him and Blaine at Sectionals. "This is my boyfriend."

A smile tugged at the corners of the clerk's lips then. "Cute," she said, sliding the credit card slip across the top of the desk. "Good for you."

Kurt traded the card slip for two keycards and followed Rachel to the elevator.

"You don't always play fair, you know," he said as the doors closed on them.

"I know. But it's fun to not play fair where you are concerned." Her tone shifted to something a little more serious, and her finger played lightly over the back of his hand. He shivered involuntarily, but didn't move away.

"We can't do this every time we're alone together, Rach." He shook his head. "It's not- I mean. Finn. And Blaine."

Rachel took his hand firmly then, as the doors dinged open, and led him down the hall to the room they had been given. She waited until he'd managed the keycard, and then she stood up on her tiptoes to breathe into his ear. "I don't care about Finn right now. Or Blaine. And I doubt you do, either."

"Um."

Rachel let the door snick closed behind them. "I didn't think so."

"You might be right, but I'm still not . . . I mean, you were so upset when we left the city, and this really isn't the answer." Kurt shrugged out of his jacket and set it on the back of one of the chairs to let it dry.

"Why can't it?" Rachel's voice was full of little-girl indignation. "What's wrong with having fun? With doing something that nobody would expect?"

Kurt ran a hand through his hair. "Because I'm  _with_ Blaine now," he said, trying to make his voice strong.

Rachel turned on him, eyes blazing. "And how's that working out for you? Because Finn and I? Not going so well."

"Some of it is this whole thing with not all of his classes transferring. You  _know_ he planned to come to New York with us next year, and now he has to do a whole extra year, which is just stupid."

"And irrelevant, because neither of us is going to New York now. So who cares about what we  _should_  or  _shouldn't_  do. You and I, why can't we  _be_ something to each other?"

"Because it doesn't work that way, Rachel. We can't be friends with benefits, or hook up in secret, or  _whatever_ , just because we're feeling sad and lonely and broken." He shook his head. "We can't fix each other, you know that right?"

"I don't need you to fix me. I just..." she wrinkled the fabric of her shirt in her balled-up hands. "I just want something  _easy_ , you know?"

The thing was, Kurt  _did_ know. He knew that no matter how many evenings he and Blaine spent in Blaine's empty house or the back seat of Kurt's Navigator, things were never going to be as gentle and uncomplicated as they had been with Rachel.

He crossed the room and pulled her to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. His instinct was to protect Rachel, to keep her safe from the things that were making her hurt. He'd always tried hard to trust his instinct, and as much as his brain was screaming at him that nothing about this was a good idea, he held her head gently between his hands and kissed her softly.

It wasn't going to be perfect, for either of them; Kurt knew this as they awkwardly managed clothes and the three feet of space between them and the bed. But it was human comfort and closeness, and Kurt had to admit that the second time  _was_ better than the first, if only by a matter of degrees.

He took it as a good sign that Rachel was laughing in his arms after, and her laugh proved infectious.

She shook her head at him, the ends of her hair tickling his chest. "We're never going to be very good at this," she said earnestly, "but trying is fun, right?"

Kurt snickered in spite of himself, because she was right. "Yes, Rach. Trying is fun." He ran a tentative hand up the length of her spine, and shivered when she did.

"Why is it more fun with you? It's just so much  _work_ with Finn."

Kurt held his thoughts for a moment. "It's work with Blaine, too. I feel like he and I have to agree, and  _manage_  things, and there's never anything spontaneous about it." He literally bit his tongue to keep from turning bitchy, but in the end the things he's been holding down since Christmas break are tumbling up and out of his mouth. "I mean, really. We have to negotiate whose turn it is for a freaking blow job. A  _blow job_ , Rachel. Because  _someone_ doesn't like to give them."

Rachel propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him with sparkling eyes. "I'm going to guess that someone isn't you."

"No. It's not me. I like giving them. But I  _also_ like being on the receiving end more than twice a month."

"Poor baby," Rachel sing-songed. "Is someone feeling neglected?"

He swatted her hand away from where she was trying to navigate under the sheet. "Honestly?"

She nodded eagerly, like his secrets were the best gift she'd ever been given. "Please?"

He huffed into her hair. "Yes, okay? Because as scary as it was at first, I  _like_  sex. I like feeling close to Blaine that way, even if I want to  _throttle_ him sometimes."

Rachel's hand was warm against his skin. "Do you love him? I mean, is  _he_ it for you? Because everyone in Glee thinks you guys are like the gay Mike and Tina."

"Oh. I- huh." Kurt was surprised that he'd been waylaid by such a simple question, but he honestly hadn't given it much thought.

"Instinct, Kurt. What does your gut tell you?"

"That- that I'm filling my time with Blaine until I can be somewhere else.  _With_ someone else."

Rachel just stretched out along side of him, warm and soft and the sweetest kind of comfort he hadn't known he needed in that moment. Kurt put his arm around her, and just  _felt_.

"Don't take this any way at all, Rach," he whispered as he twined a strand of her hair in his fingers, "but I kind of love you, you know."

She nodded against his shoulder. "I know, K. I kind of love you, too."

 


	3. Chapter 3

Kurt was sitting at the kitchen table, warily eyeing the large envelope from NYADA when his phone buzzed from the vicinity of his elbow. He was waiting for a call from Blaine, who had been adamant that Kurt open the envelope as close to  _with him_ as possible. And since Blaine was currently on a long weekend trip to visit his grandparents, the phone was going to have to be it.

"It's big," he said, answering without checking the caller ID.

"Um, dude, didn't need to know," Finn spluttered on the other end.

"Brother mine. What's up?"

"You gotta get over here, Kurt. Rachel is inconsolable, and I can't even get near her. She just keeps asking for you."

"She didn't get in." He had suspected, maybe  _known_ even, since auditions. But the stark reality of it was jarring, especially in light of his own good fortune.

"No, man. She  _didn't_ get in. Not to NYADA, at least. But she's got a stack of acceptances that she won't even look at. I'm telling you, it's a bad scene and I  _need_ you here."

Kurt thought on that for a moment. " _Rachel_ needs me there. I'll be over in 10 minutes."

* * *

Rachel was curled up on her bed in a nest of tissues. What Kurt assumed had been sobs had quieted to stuttering hiccups and shuddery breathing by the time he arrived, and he made quick work of things.

The first thing to go was Finn, who didn't look bothered in the least.

The second thing to go was the tissues, into the bathroom trash.

The third thing to go was Rachel, into the steaming hot shower Kurt started running first thing.  
She protested weakly at him, but he held his ground. "Don't come out until you feel like jell-o," he told her through the glass.

When she emerged 20 minutes later, her cheeks were pink and her breathing had settled, but her eyes were still red-rimmed. "Thank you," she said, her voice hoarse and still a little choked on emotion.

"You would do the same, if I needed you." Kurt shrugged matter-of-factly. Because the truth was, he  _knew_ he was right about that. The years and experiences they shared made it so.

"I  _knew_ at auditions that I wasn't going to get in, but somehow seeing it in print was too much."

She stood at the edge of her desk, flicking her finger over a pile of large, thick, and glaringly unopened envelopes. "Now I need to decide."

Kurt patted the edge of the bed. "Bring them here. We can look at them together."

* * *

It felt comfortable to Kurt, in a way he hadn't expected, to be sitting there in Rachel's very pink bedroom, on her very pink bed, with her in a pair of very pink pajamas nestled into the v of his legs and leaning back against his chest. She fumbled with the packet from Marymount Manhattan, discarding the acceptance letter and financial aid offer and instead focusing on the one-page outline of the theater arts curriculum. "You know you can take a minor in musical theater, right?" Kurt murmured in her ear.

"I know." She turned her head so she could look him in the eye. "What do you think?" She waved her hand at the mess of their discoveries, the shredded pieces of envelopes and well-examined letters and brochures that littered her bed.

"I think Marymount is best for you. And your dads," he added quickly, thinking of the package from NYU that was nothing short of highway robbery, and the promise of a free ride to Kent State that Kurt knew would be nothing less than  _settling_ where Rachel was concerned.

"Me, too."

"Good," Kurt said with a smile as he placed a kiss on the side of her neck. "You'll still get to live your New York dream."

He felt Rachel relax into his touch, into the brush of his breath along her neck and the strength of his arms around her. He didn't even startle when she moved her hand up his thigh, warm and tender even through the fabric of his jeans.

"Blaine's away this weekend," she said into the air, not needing to ask the question. "Finn is wherever he goes when I won't see him, and my dads are on their monthly date night to Columbus. " She ticked the facts off on her fingers before whispering conspiratorially at Kurt. "They won't be back until after midnight."

"The right thing for me to do would be to say no."

Rachel's voice went suddenly harsh. "Fuck the  _right thing_ , Kurt. And it's our secret anyway."

Kurt leaned his head back against the pile of very pink pillows propping him up against the headboard and sighed. "Why can't I say no to you?"

"Because you love me." Her words were tinged with something a little bitter, a little sad, and a lot  _little girl, lost_.

She was right. Kurt did love her, in a mixed-up not-quite-sister, more-than-best-friend way that felt at once insanely complicated and the easiest thing he'd ever done.

He gave in without a fight.

* * *

Kurt wondered, as he burrowed a little further under Rachel's comforter, whether they really  _were_ getting better at things, or if they were just more comfortable with each other.

Rachel snuggled closer against his chest and looked up at him from her half of the pillow. "I think," she closed her eyes halfway at his fingertip running up the inside of her arm, "that we're getting better."

"You might be right about that." Kurt laughed to himself. "I wonder what that means about me? I mean, really. So gay!"

"Do you- Blaine-"

"Spit it out, Rach."

"Do you and Blaine do  _this_ afterwards?"

Kurt slid onto his back and moved Rachel so she was laying with her head against his chest, and shook his head. "No. But, then again, we are usually trying to be quick and quiet so we don't get caught."

Rachel nodded knowingly. "That's why Finn only ever comes here. Not that I don't love your dad, Kurt, because he's  _awesome_ , but I think he'd kill Finn."

"Yeah. We go to Blaine's house a lot, because his parents are never home, but we always have to sneak around with dumb excuses. Do you and Finn . . . do  _this_?"

Rachel let out a huff of air. "No. Let's just say that Finn is not supremely attentive."

Kurt let his brain chase that around a little bit. He  _thought_  he knew what Rachel was talking about, and he hated to ask because that was just embarrassing. But he wanted to know. "Are you trying to tell me that you don't -  _you know_?"

"Kurt!" Rachel flushed deep pink and buried her face against him.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing."

"Oh, God. Yes, okay. Yes, we're talking about the same thing, and  _no_ , Finn doesn't usually make sure I've . . .  _finished_. . . before he does."

"Oh." Kurt filed that away under  _things he never needed to know about Finn_ and turned his attention back to the feel of Rachel's bare skin under the flat of his hand.

Rachel patted him gently on his chest. "You do fine, honey."

Kurt chuckled, but was oddly affected by Rachel's admission. He was surprised to feel himself choke a little on his words. "Thank you."

"I suspect that isn't a problem with you and Blaine."

"We  _are_ healthy teenage boys.  _No_ , to answer your question. It's not a problem."

"So what is?"

"What makes you think there's a problem?" Kurt wasn't sure why he was feeling defensive, but he was feeling a little sideways by the way Rachel knew how to get right to the core of things

"I don't think either of us would be so quick to do  _this_ if everything were okay with you and Blaine."

Kurt took a deep breath, more as a preemptive strike against any heat he knew would find it's way to his face than the content of what he had to say. "I don't think Blaine likes sex very much."

"I can see where that would be a problem."

Kurt laughed at her. "How is it that nothing phases you?"

Rachel just stared at him.

"I know, I know. Two gay dads. Sorry."

Rachel sat up and tugged the sheet around her chest. "What makes you think that Blaine doesn't like sex?"

Kurt closed his eyes and thought about the way Blaine didn't like to look at him, how he'd turn his head away when he came. How quick he was to clean up afterwards, and how he never had a lot to say in those moments when Kurt's emotions gave him so many thoughts and feelings and words that he sometimes worried he'd drown in them if he couldn't get them out. "He just acts like everything about it makes him uncomfortable. And I wonder if he thinks he made a mistake, having sex with me. Because I think he knows we're really not right for each other."

"I think Finn knows, too. And it hurts him, because he loves me."

"But you don't love him?"

"I don't know. I mean, I  _did_ , once, and I think I've held onto that for so long, I'm not sure what is genuine and what is just, well, the way things have always been."

Kurt pulled Rachel back down and covered them both against the chill darkness of her room. "I wanted Blaine, for so long. And then I got him, and I couldn't believe someone like _me_ had a boyfriend."

"Oh, honey." Rachel's voice was soft and a little sad. "Someday all of this is going to be a distant memory."

"Even you?" Kurt breathed in the sunflower scent of her shampoo and swallowed around a pang of something in his chest.

"Probably. Maybe especially me."

Kurt kissed her forehead, and held her closer.

Just before he drifted into a light sleep, he whispered his biggest secret. "I got in, Rach."

She nodded against him, and her own voice was rough with fatigue. "I know, honey."


	4. Chapter 4

Kurt was in the middle of his chicken scampi at a little hole in the wall in Little Italy, making eyes over the candles at Tyler, the cute Juilliard student in the jazz class he took at STEPS, when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He had set the ring to low, so he listened really hard in case it was his dad or Carole calling. But it wasn't home. It was the tinny sounds of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina." It was Rachel.

He ignored it.

Three minutes later, it rang again.

He ignored it again.

One minute and 30 seconds later, it rang again and Kurt excused himself to the men's room.

Kurt hissed angrily into the phone. "Rach, what the hell? I haven't heard from you in weeks, and I'm in the middle of the best first date I've had since I got to New York. This better be good."

All he could hear was Rachel, breath shuddering and voice gasping.

"Rach? What's wrong?"

"I- I- I  _hate_ it here, Kurt."

Kurt smiled in spite of himself, and thought of Tyler at the table. "I don't know what happened, but you're getting the patented Kurt Hummel 30 second pep talk because my date is going  _really_ well and I want to get some tonight. So here it goes: You are beautiful and talented and smart and funny and whichever girl hates you or whatever part you didn't get isn't worth worrying over because you're going to rule Broadway in five years. Now," he spoke firmly into his phone, "I'm turning my phone off and going back to my date, and I'll call you tomorrow."

He hung up before she could get a word in, and turned the ringer off on his phone before tucking it back into his pocket.

Two bites into his tiramisu, it buzzed again and he turned it off.

"Everything okay?" Tyler asked gently, waving his fork with a bit of cannoli on the end dangerously close to the candle flame.

Kurt nodded. "Just my- uh. My friend Rachel. She's a little bit of a drama queen, and thinks I need to be at her beck and call."

"Mmmm." Tyler smiled knowingly. "I have one of those. Her name is Nell, and she's out in Oregon. She's always forgetting about the time difference and calling me at 1 am when something is going wrong."

"I suppose it's lucky, then, that Rachel is in the city. Or a curse."

"Where's she in school?"

"Marymount." Kurt swallowed his tiramisu. "Theater."

"Intense." Tyler held his gaze for a fraction of a second longer than was decent or polite in other company.

"No more than Juilliard. Or NYADA."

Tyler nodded. "Point." He scraped the last of the cannoli shell through mascarpone and chocolate sauce and popped it into his mouth. "Speaking of intense, I have rehearsal in the morning."

Kurt waved at the waiter for their check and leaned back in his chair. "I have scene prep at 8 am," he lied, because he didn't want Tyler to think he  _expected_ anything from this date. But then he blinked and smiled. "I'm kind of a night owl, though, so if you'd like to walk me home . . . "

He left his words unfinished and watched Tyler's smile, and the way his eyes crinkled. "Yeah. I'd like that."

* * *

Outside, the sidewalk was slick with light, powdery snow. Kurt wrapped his gray cabled scarf around his neck and hunched his shoulders against the damp and wind he knew he'd never get used to. He led Tyler through the maze of streets and buildings that wound out of Little Italy and into his neighborhood. Two blocks from the building where he lived, alone, in the tiniest 6th floor walk-up known to man, he didn't pull away when Tyler reached into the small space between them and took Kurt's gloved hand in his own. Their breathing left them walking through clouds of white, and when Kurt turned and looked he could see snowflakes catching in Tyler's eyelashes. All of it made him smile, and when they reached his block he sort of half-pulled Tyler to him and kissed him lightly.

When Tyler pulled away, eyes sparkling, he smiled at Kurt. He spoke, soft and low in to the hush of the snow. "I had fun tonight. Thank you. Maybe we could do this again?"

Kurt smiled back, his heart light in his chest. "Tuesday after class, if neither of us have anything?"

"I'd like that."

Kurt watched as Tyler walked backwards for a few steps before turning and half-skipping around the corner towards the subway. When he'd disappeared into the night, Kurt strode the rest of the way to his building. He caught a shadow on the stoop, but it wasn't until he was climbing the steps that he realized the shadow was Rachel, small and shivering in her inadequate jeans and fleece jacket.

"Rach! What are you doing?"

She turned her tear-streaked face on him and practically shouted. "You weren't answering your phone and I  _needed_ you, Kurt."

Kurt jammed his hands in his coat pockets and whirled away, working hard to breathe through the slight rage that hit him, oddly and suddenly, in a way nothing about Rachel ever had.

"I was on a date, Rachel," he sighed into the empty space in front of him before turning back to face her. "I turned it off, because I was having a good night and I wanted to finish enjoying it."  _And I am not your eternal savior, no matter how much you want that from me._

"It looked like you did. Enjoy it, I mean." Kurt startled lightly at the force of the anger in her voice.

"Yes." He felt coldness seep into his own words. "Tyler is a nice guy. He's in the dance program at Juilliard. We met in jazz class at STEPS."

"I'm glad you're meeting people." Kurt could feel Rachel shutting down with every word.

Kurt stomped his feet to circulate his blood and fumbled with his keys before grabbing at Rachel's hand. "No, you're not, but we can talk about that inside. C'mon."

He dragged her through the cramped entryway and up the five flights of dim, damp stairs to his apartment.  _My cell_ , he thought of it sometimes. It was dark even in full daylight, so he'd hung gauzy scarves over the windows and strung three complete sets of white Christmas lights from along his sloping walls. He had a kitchen with a small sink, a two-burner stove and what he joked was an Easy-Bake Oven, and an impossible full-sized refrigerator. His furniture barely fit. But it was his, alone, and he didn't have to live in the dorm or share a two-bedroom closer to school with six other people.

He pushed Rachel through the door and turned on the light so she wouldn't trip over his textbooks where they were stacked next to his faux closet, and then he moved around her to turn on the tea kettle. Then he tossed her one of his down throws and motioned for her to sit on his bed while he cranked up the radiator and unwrapped himself from his outerwear. When he felt less bulky and had calmed himself with the motions of  _mugs-tea bags- tea spoons-sugar_ he turned and regarded her with cool detachment.

"What's going on?"

"Why is none of this hard for you?" She looked so young, wrapped in the throw and perched awkwardly on the corner of his mattress.

"None of what?"

"The city. School. Meeting people. Being away from Lima."

He sighed and leaned against the peeling laminate of his counter. "It's not that it's  _easy_. It's just . . ." He ran a hand through his hair and thought about the kids in his program, the ones who'd had formal acting and formal dance and voice lessons beyond what he'd been able to learn on Mr. Schue's more teacheable days. The kids like Rachel. The ones who made him wonder why  _he'd_ been accepted when she hadn't. "I can't think too much about it, or I'd never get through the day."

"And Tyler?"

"He's a nice guy." Kurt shrugged. "I like him, I think he likes me. He gets what all of this is like." Kurt waved his hand at his cramped living space, littered with dog-eared scripts and sheet music, and the stupid diorama for his stage design class.

"And I don't?"

Kurt opened and closed his mouth three times before he was blasted into his head by the sharp whistle of the kettle. He poured the water and left the tea to steep while he crossed over to Rachel and sat next to her. "Even if it goes somewhere, he's never going to replace you. Because you  _do_ get it, Rach. Better than he could because you know where we're from. You know how much it means to be here."

He touched the back of her hand tentatively with the tip of a finger; she was ice cold.

"But we haven't hung out in weeks!" She bordered between scolding and whining, and Kurt thought back to that last night out, playing Queer Eye to a gaggle of girls from Rachel's floor when all he'd really wanted was takeout Chinese and a Modern Family marathon with Rachel, just the two of them, feeling like home.

Kurt closed his eyes against her accusation. "I can't be your Gay Best Friend all the time. It's exhausting." He dug deep, around the little voice that had been sing-songing to him from the moment he'd stepped out of the karaoke bar into the crisp night those weeks ago. "And it isn't fair."

"But-"

"But nothing." He pushed himself up, moved back to the counter to pull the bags out of their mugs. He carried them carefully, not really wanting the red mark of a burn on his hand. He handed Rachel her tea and shifted awkwardly, not sure where to settle. Or if he even wanted to. "What am I to you, Rach?"

"I- what?"

"Am I your friend? Your sort-of brother? A fuckbuddy?" Kurt didn't need to be looking; he felt her wince from his spot by the window, watching his fire escape glitter with snow.

"Kurt- what?"

He wheeled on her, suddenly full of the unexpected agony of  _missing her_. "God, Rach." His fingers drummed on his thigh, the stupid song he'd been working on in voice lessons for the better part of the month. "I'm more than karaoke night with the girls.  _Please_. Tell me I'm more than that to you."

"Of course you are. But Kurt, I'm not sure I understand."

"Why did you call me tonight?"

Rachel just stared at him, eyes big and head tilted.

He didn't think too hard,  _couldn't_  think too hard because he couldn't afford to get tangled in his own thoughts. "If you just missed me, you could have called yesterday, or last week, or the morning after karaoke. If it were a real crisis, you would have told me instead of letting me talk at you before I hung up. Don't forget, I  _know_ you, Rachel. So. Why did you call me tonight?"

Kurt saw the tears in her eyes before he heard them in her voice. "This boy in my Shakespeare class asked me out today."

Kurt shrugged at her, silently asking  _what's the problem with that?_

She shook her head. "I couldn't say yes. Because when I should want to be out with him, I want to be here. With you."

_Oh_. Kurt breathed in the steam from his tea for a moment before setting his mug on the top of his bookcase. But he wasn't fast enough to grab Rachel as she burst past him, out the door and down the stairs in a flash.

Kurt shoved his feet hastily into his slippers and scooped his keys off the counter before clattering out onto the landing and taking the stairs three at a time all the way down to the first floor. Rachel was sliding on the snow in those damn ballet flats she insisted on wearing all the time ( _even in a fucking New York winter_ he thought with a mix of exasperation and tenderness).

"Rachel! Rach! Wait!" He cursed under his breath as the snow slopped over the edge of his slippers, tucking icily against his socks, but he caught up to her before she was at the next streetlight. He grabbed for her wrist and came away with a handful of fleece.

It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to stop her forward motion. He twisted himself around, and as soon as he was close enough he put his hands on either side of Rachel's face and kissed her. Hard.

He was angry and confused and more than a little lost, and he didn't have any room inside himself for the kind of softness that had existed between them before. He let himself just feel, the odd strength of the  _want_ coursing through him and the way Rachel was pressing herself against him, her hands indecent even in the middle of the street. Kurt pulled away slightly at the sound of footsteps approaching, and the middle-aged man walking a sad-looking Scottie in a fuzzy blue doggie sweater scowled at them.

"Get a damn room," he muttered as he passed by, loud enough for Kurt to know he meant for them to hear.

Kurt took Rachel's hand in his. "C'mon, you." He looked at her, and knew that no matter what had happened with Tyler, he  _had_ to have Rachel in his bed tonight.

* * *

He tried to be gentle. He felt Rachel trying as well, but apparently neither of them wanted it gentle, at least not the first time. He kind of surprised himself, really, as he settled above her, his hands moving,  _always moving_ against her skin, his mouth hungry, her body yielding to him.

It felt familiar, in a distant kind of way, like he'd been reaching for  _this_  part of himself for all those careful, sedate months with Blaine. Like he'd needed that, to get him  _here_. To this moment, coming apart  _with_ Rachel. To the laughter through tears, and the striking knowledge that no matter how complicated things had seemed before, they were even worse now.

But he didn't know what to say, or  _how_ to say it, so he lost himself again in the feel of Rachel, and let  _her_  fill the empty hours until dawn.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt rolled and stretched against Rachel's slightly unfamiliar form, wrapped around him in his suddenly too-small bed, and just  _looked_ at her.

"Rach? You awake?"

She shifted, burrowed her head against his shoulder, and hummed lightly in her sleep.

Kurt moved his arm, jostled her slightly, and tried again. "Rachel."

She rolled over that time, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and looked up at him. "Hey." Her voice was rough with sleep and emotion, but she looked kind of calm, kind of the way Kurt was feeling.

"Are you okay?" He asked in seriousness, and so was surprised when Rachel laughed lightly at him.

"Baby. It's not like we haven't done that before." She sounded so matter of fact that Kurt wasn't sure what to think.

"No, I know." He ran his hand lightly through her hair, toying with the ends where it was splayed in dark waves across her pillow. "But it just felt . . .  _different_ , to me."

"Mm." Rachel nodded. "Yes, it  _was_ different. But," she trailed a hand over the inside of his wrist, "it was good, for me."

Kurt blushed lightly at that, which sort of surprised him. He felt like his new, more mature city-self should have outgrown that childhood affectation by now, but he simply couldn't control it. "It was for me, too." He closed his eyes against the sudden rush of emotion in his chest. "Brittany always said it was better with feelings."

He felt Rachel's breath against his neck. "Kurt?"

Her voice sounded small, like she was unsure and nervous and wanting to talk around something.

"Yeah?"

"Better with what kinds of feelings? Are you okay?"

Kurt pulled the down duvet up further around his bare shoulders. His apartment was never fully warm, but he wasn't sure if the chill he was feeling was from the room or from the odd combination of excited and scared that he was feeling.

He snuggled down into the warmth and closed his eyes in an attempt to settle his brain. "Yes, Rach," he sighed, perhaps a little more condescendingly than he'd intended. "I'm  _okay_."

He felt her stiffen, and her words were hard and harsh. "Don't play with me, Kurt. You can't tell me my behavior isn't fair and then pull this kind of crap with me. Because  _that's_ not fair, either." He opened his eyes and looked into her fiery gaze, and everything in his universe tilted a bare inch to the left.

"What are we doing, Rach?"

"I don't- I, um. God, Kurt." She all but dissolved into self-effacing laughter. "I have no freaking idea. Why?"

"Because." He thought about the way she felt in his arms, the way her body had moved against him, under him. The multitude of ways that she made him absolutely crazy, and the fact that he was feeling more connected to her in this moment than he ever had with another person.

He reached over and ran a gentle fingertip down the line of her jaw. Her skin was warm and golden in the tiniest sliver of light that sometimes snuck through his window. When she turned her head, following the touch of his hand, her face was so relaxed and open to him that Kurt gasped audibly.  _This_  Rachel, the one who he'd rendered writhing and boneless mere hours ago, was a Rachel he'd never seen before. He suspected he was the only one who had  _ever_ seen this Rachel.

"You trust me." He didn't make it a question. He just knew it was true.

She nodded, and he kept plucking at these words, these half-formed thoughts. "I trust you, too. I don't- I mean. I have no right to tell you that I miss you, or that I need you. Or," he swallowed around sudden emotion, "that I  _want_  you. I'm  _gay_ , Rach. I'm not  _supposed_ to want you."

Rachel moved then, unexpectedly, propelling herself out of bed with jerky motions and yanking the blankets with her. Before Kurt really knew what was happening, she was scrabbling for her clothes where they'd been discarded in the dark of night.

"Rachel.  ** _Rach_**. Wait. Where are you going?"

When she turned to him, halfway into her jeans, she was closed off and hard again. "I don't know how to do this."

"Do what?"

She sighed in what Kurt thought sounded like frustration. "I don't know how to be that person. How to be  _your_ person. I can't- I just-"

Kurt reached out for her hand, and didn't let her pull away when she tried. "Slow down. Here," he moved aside and waved to the bed. "Come sit down. And try again. We have all the time in the world."

She followed him, but he could feel reluctance pouring off her in waves. She sat heavily, and wouldn't touch or look at him when he settled next to her. Her voice was hollow. "I'm not a good person, Kurt. I'm not  _nice_ , or  _sweet_. I'm also not deaf. I  _hear_ the things people say about me."

"I don't care about those things. You're  _Rachel_. And  _my_  Rachel is perfect the way she is." He shook his head at her. "You make me absolutely crazy, don't get me wrong, but Rachel. Don't you know that I  _love_ you?"

Her silence sent Kurt's heart sinking, which seemed important in it's own right, but he didn't puzzle too much at it. When she turned to look at him after a long stretch of quiet, there were tears streaking down her cheeks, and she looked startled. "I don't . . . you can't . . ."

Kurt took her hand and turned it over, used his thumb to rub soothing circles into her palm. "What?"

She shook her head, dripping tears into dark spots on her jeans. "I don't deserve it."

"Who says? Because I don't think that. I think we're all deserving of love. I also think," he said softly, wiping tears from her cheek with a fingertip, "that love can  _make_ you a better person. Would you-" Kurt paused a moment, knowing what he wanted to say but unsure how to say it. Rachel looked at him expectantly, so he took a breath and let the words out in a rush. "Would you let me love you?"

"I don't know how to do that." Rachel sounded distant, but she leaned a little closer to Kurt, and he put an arm around her but was careful not to pull her too close.

"I think you do, you just don't know it yet." Kurt waited, and Rachel scooted half an inch towards him. "I think," he said into the movement of her body, "that you  _want_ to."

"But what would that mean? You are gay, of course." Kurt knew that facts and concrete things were easier for Rachel, so he let her drift into organizer mode; there was plenty of time for emotions later.

"With a string of terrible first dates and no-night stands in my wake. Oh yes, I'm  _so_ successful at being gay!" Kurt also knew that his own self-deprecation would make Rachel laugh, would loosen her up a little.

"But you're not straight. How would this work, if I- if you-"

"Well. Less than boyfriend/girlfriend, but more than friends with benefits?"

Rachel thought for a moment, and nodded her head firmly. "Only as long as both of us are single." She poked a finger into the middle of his chest. "Full disclosure, protection all the time. And there's no way I can stay over on Monday or Wednesday nights because I have an 8 am class on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

Kurt pulled Rachel to his chest, and she didn't resist. He dropped a soft kiss on top of her head. "I wouldn't expect anything less. But I have one more condition, and it might be hard for you." He let his words drift into light teasing, to keep her from going tense.

"What is it?"

"You can't run when your feelings scare you." He watched her weigh this, her eyes large and her teeth nibbling at her bottom lip. "When it's too much, curl up on the couch and I'll make you tea. Okay?"

"I- I-" She closed her eyes and sighed. "I think I can do that. Or, I can try, at least. But Kurt?"

"Yeah?"

"If- if I'm not very good at that, promise me you won't disappear?"

"Oh, Rach." Kurt shook his head, and felt his heart break a little bit. "I promise." He slid back into bed, pulled her down with him and covered them both with the blankets. He rubbed her back gently and listened to her breathing regulate.

"I know you don't think so, but we're both worthy of this, of each other."

Rachel just lay there, warm in his arms. She sighed a soft sigh. "I hope you're right."

 


	6. Chapter 6

Spring was coming to the city, and Kurt felt alive when he burst out onto the sidewalk after jazz class, dance bag swinging and Tyler hot on his heels.

"You're getting better," Tyler nodded at him as they dodged business-suited professionals bounding home with dry cleaning and groceries. "More confident."

Kurt took a swig from his water bottle and waited under the awning of the comic book store on the corner for Tyler to catch up. "8 months of lessons means I should be getting _something_. I'm glad better is it." Kurt had no illusions. He was never going to be a professional. But he needed to know how to do something other than step-touch and sway, and the jazz class was helping. So were the recreational tap and ballet classes he took way downtown at an out of the way Y, the ones that nobody but Rachel knew about. Tonight's class had been good. Kurt felt strong, and he'd actually been able to get through the floor combinations without thinking about them; for the first time in all those months, his body _knew_ what to do when the music came on. He was almost high on the energy, and he wanted to take on the city with it.

He turned and started walking backwards around the corner, raising his voice above the squeals and honks of the traffic. "We should go out tonight."

"But it's a Kurt and Rachel night. Tuesdays are, what did you call them? Right,  _especially sacrosanct_."

Kurt shook his head. "Rach has rehearsal for her acting workshop, and I have a voice lesson early." He rolled his eyes. "She told me I needed my rest to be properly prepared, so she's staying at the dorm tonight."

Tyler reached out a hand and slipped Kurt's bag off his shoulder and onto his own, where it banged against his hip. Then he slid his fingers loosely between Kurt's. "Sometimes I think Rachel takes your career more seriously than you do."

"Mmmm." Kurt moved quickly, gently pulling Tyler behind him to the subway. "Rachel takes  _everything_ more seriously than I do. As far as my career is concerned, well. Rachel has dreams and talent that this city is never going to crush. And I have reality." He swiped his fare card and tucked himself through the turnstile and waited for Tyler to do the same. "I'm never going to be a star, and I know it. But I'm getting good training, so I can't complain I guess."

Tyler paused at the top of the stairs. "Rachel . . . she  _really_ doesn't mind you going out and doing gay things with me?"

"I  _am_  gay, Ty." And then Kurt waited for the  _look_ , the one he was getting used to, the one that told him exactly what every gay man he met thought about his arrangement with Rachel. The look that said  _you're not really gay if you're fucking a woman_ , the look that told Kurt he wasn't good enough, or gay enough. The look that told him  _you're not one of us, no matter what you say_. But Kurt never got that look from Tyler. He never felt  _less than_  with Tyler, which was why they kept crashing around in each other's orbits. And when Kurt had slunk guiltily home one night right before Christmas when the situation with Rachel was still new, breathless and more than simply turned on after making out with Tyler at a Juilliard party, Rachel had patted him gently and taken him to bed and  _taken care of him_. Later, she'd held him and told him that she liked Tyler, thought he was good for Kurt.  _It's okay with me if you keep seeing him_ , she told him, and Kurt had tried it out for a few weeks after the holidays. But it turned out that he and Tyler were better as friends.

So now when the urge for connection reared up in Kurt so strong that he couldn't shake it, when he felt alive and part of things and open to the world, he and Tyler would go dancing. They would pulse and thrum and absorb energy from everyone and everything, and let themselves be utterly filthy on the dance floor together. And then Kurt would go home to Rachel and Tyler would go home to the sophomore piano major on his hall, and they would manage the attraction that simmered sometimes. Because Kurt needed a friend more than he needed a boyfriend.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to look up to where Tyler was  _still_  lingering, his dance bag tangled with Kurt's, still on his shoulder. Kurt cocked his head and shifted his body into what Rachel called his  _catty baby queen_  pose, and he summoned up his best Southern accent (alternately a blessing or a curse from all the Tennessee Williams they'd been working on in his scene study). "Well,  _darlin"_ , are we goin' dancin' or not?"

* * *

Tuesdays were '80's night at Kurt's favorite club, and they danced until well after 1 am, until Tyler had pulled him out into the almost-cold of the April night and pushed him against the brick wall and kissed him.

"Damn, Kurt. I have class at 8. I kind of need to go," he grunted out once he'd pulled away.

Kurt dropped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. "Go." He waved his hand. "It's okay."

Ty backed away, turned and stumbled two buildings away before he was back in front of Kurt so fast that he hadn't had time to blink. And then Tyler was full against him, breath hot on Kurt's neck and his body, tight and lean from so many years of dancing, was pushing against Kurt in such a delicious way that Kurt didn't ever want it to stop.

He finally  _had_ to stop, though, because he was dangerously close to being inappropriate on a public street, and he tugged at Tyler's hand and they walked together to the subway for the second time that day.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Tyler asked when they were swaying with the rhythm of the train.

Kurt shook his head and answered honestly. "I'm not sure what is and is not a good idea anymore."

Tyler's hand was gentle on Kurt's arm. "We don't have to do anything."

"I know." Kurt shrugged his shoulders.

"What's going on?"

"Is it silly for me to miss men?" Kurt had danced around this with Rachel for months, because he knew that she would feel guilty and want to fix things when it wasn't about her at all.

"No. Not at all." Tyler nodded in understanding. "You know I'm never going to judge what you have with Rachel. Hell. I seriously think that if Nell and I were on the same coast, we'd have our own complicated situation. Has she asked you to  _not_ see men?"

Kurt turned his answer over a few times. "Not explicitly. She likes you well enough. And she and I  _were_  fooling around when we were back in high school and seeing other people. I just don't want to be out there  _too much_ , because we both agreed than we would be together when we were both single."

Kurt saw the light go on in Tyler's eyes. "And taking me to bed implies that you're not single."

Kurt swallowed, hard. "I don't know."

"And what's so scary about not being single?" God, Kurt almost hated how kind Tyler was being. He didn't deserve it, because he knew he was playing fast and loose with other people's emotions, but he couldn't find his way out of the net of  _need Rachel, want Rachel_ to get to anything else.

"If I'm with someone else, there's a good chance I can't be with Rachel. And I know that it makes no sense, but I  _love_ her." Kurt blinked at the tears in his eyes, and didn't fight when Tyler shifted in his seat and opened his arms to Kurt.

"I know you do," Tyler whispered into his ear while the train squeaked along. "But you can't hide yourself away forever. Denying yourself, that's almost as hard as living in the closet."

"Yeah." Kurt relaxed into the warmth of Tyler's body. "That still doesn't take care of whether or not you're going to join me in my bed tonight."

Kurt shivered at the light touch of Tyler's lips against the side of his neck. "Not tonight. I think you need to clarify some things with Rachel," he tapped a finger against where Kurt's heart was pounding in his chest, "and  _here_ , for yourself. But I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

Kurt nodded. "What about Leo?"

Tyler scoffed. "Leo is in love with his music. We're just diversions for each other."

"Oh." Kurt wondered if that's all that he and Rachel were to each other, really, but it didn't feel that way to him at all.

"Don't think that," Tyler said, tightening his arms around Kurt's chest.

"Think what?"

"If all you and Rachel were to each other were diversions, you'd have stopped hooking up a long time ago. You wouldn't  _love_ her the way you do. So don't worry on it, okay?"

"Sure." Kurt sat, his mind reeling, until the train squeaked to a stop and Tyler nudged him up and onto the platform. When the train had sped off and they were left in the late-night quiet of the station, Tyler fixed Kurt with a stare. "What?" Kurt held his hands up in defense.

"Don't go all drama-queen on me. You're not as good at it as you think you are.  _Relax_ , please, and let me walk you home. Okay?"

"Okay."

They walked silently, bodies close and shoulders bumping, and Tyler left Kurt with a kiss that made his knees weak. Kurt tried chasing after the kiss, reluctant to end the night or the attraction that had flared up, but Tyler just clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Patience, Kurt. If this is meant to be, we'll get our acts together."

And then he was gone, back to the subway and his midtown dorm room, and Kurt was alone, watching.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Kurt stretched, propped on his elbows, on the cotton blanket and watched the crowd grow around them. Rachel was talking with a handful of the girls who had lived on her floor last year, and Tyler was busy, moving between cooler and picnic basket and trying out a complicated lift with his pas de deux partner. It was an odd group, at the park for a free concert: Kurt, Tyler, and Rachel, and a crazy patchwork of their respective school friends. Kurt had been hoping to steal some time with Tyler, time they hadn't been able to manage since school let out because of the pressures of summer internships and workshops and classes that made Kurt feel pulled in twenty directions at once and turned Rachel into a worse diva than she'd been in high school.

Add a July heatwave into the mix, and Kurt was grumpy and tired. And lonely, not just for Rachel but also for Tyler.

He slid his sunglasses down over his eyes and tipped his face up towards the late afternoon sun, grateful for SPF 80 and being able to wear an awesome vintage sun hat out in public and not be mocked for it. It was the kind of day he'd long imagined in his high school daydreams, and it felt really good.

He startled from his thoughts when a shadow crossed through the sun, plunked next to him on the blanket, and slid a cold, wet bottle of water into his hand.

"You should drink that," Tyler said softly, "and pretend that you're not watching Rachel flirt with Brian."

"Really," Kurt hummed from behind his sunglasses as he untwisted the plastic cap and tipped the bottle into his mouth. Sure enough, there was Rachel, waving her hands and laughing and so blatantly not trying to flirt that it made Kurt's teeth ache. The Brian in question was just watching her, smiling as he sipped at his Sprite.

"He's straight, right?" Kurt had to ask, because some of Tyler's dance friends passed pretty well.

"Definitely straight. Every girl in the department wants her claws in him. But he's a nice guy, stays above all the politics and shit." Tyler moved closer, let his fingers brush against Kurt's on the blanket.

"Rachel's a nice girl," he said, leaving out the most of the time he really wanted to add and leaning a little so his arm slid against Tyler's. "She needs friends beyond the girls from her dorm, the kids in her program, and me. You don't worry she'll eat him alive?"

"No way. Rachel's tame compared to some of the ballerinas." Tyler smirked, and Kurt smiled. He'd heard some of Tyler's stories, and didn't doubt that Tyler was telling him the truth. "Besides, Brian's got something crazy like 5 sisters or something."

"Mm hmm." Kurt thought that maybe the sun was melting his brain, so he focused on people watching as the park filled, and tried not to pay too much attention to how close Tyler was sitting, or how involved Rachel was or wasn't with Brian.

* * *

"We're going to a jazz club," Rachel whispered to him in the dark as she helped him fold the blanket. "Don't wait up."

Kurt blinked at her in half-surprise, mostly because she hadn't done anything even resembling dating since they'd started their thing back in the winter. "Okay. I think Ty and I are going to go dancing. Call, though, if you won't be home?"

Rachel stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, open-mouthed and forward in a way Kurt wasn't used to in public, her fingers brushing his over the edges of the blanket in the moment before she turned away.

"Will do," she finger-waved to him. "Have fun!"

"You, too," he whispered, but she was already gone.

* * *

Tyler was more than a little aggressive on the dance floor, and despite his love affair with SPF 80, Kurt felt warm and prickly under his skin; he wasn't sure if it was left over from the sun, or because Tyler was behind Kurt, holding him close and moving with him to the thumping of the music.

Kurt flushed at the twist of Tyler's hips, and thought that maybe it was both the sun and Tyler.

"You're really hot, you know." Tyler had an arm wrapped across Kurt's chest, and his head tucked into the crook of Kurt's neck. His breath was warm and slightly damp, and made Kurt shiver.

Kurt turned in Tyler's arms, threw his arms around Tyler's neck, and pressed their bodies flush together. "You tell me that every time we go dancing," he said over the music and the men. He slid his face closer, touched his lips to Tyler's in a kiss and rolled his hips, seeking contact. "When are we going to stop talking about it and actually do something about it?"

Kurt felt Tyler respond with a hip roll of his own, which was why he was surprised when Tyler just smirked at him. "Not tonight." Kurt sighed and dropped his forehead to Tyler's shoulder. "Tonight we're going to dance and I'm going to walk you home and kiss you senseless on your front stoop. And assuming that Rachel doesn't stay with Brian, which she won't on their first date because she's not that kind of a girl and he's not that kind of a boy, I'll send you home to her and the two of you will do whatever you do when I won't put out after we go dancing."

"It's not the same,' Kurt said, because it wasn't.

"I know," Tyler practically shouted as the music moved from dark and mellow to lights and a scary-fast and really bad remix of an already bad 80's song. "And it's all okay, Kurt. We have plenty of time."

_Plenty of time until some hot dancer or actor or whoever steals one of us away_ , Kurt thought before throwing his arms up, half in resignation and half in abandon, and closing his eyes to dance.

* * *

The stone of the stoop was warm against Kurt's back. Tyler had him pressed there, along the side of the steps where it was dark, his thigh tight between Kurt's legs and his hands in Kurt's hair. Kurt felt his own hands drift, settling at the small of Tyler's back, in the moments before he lost the rest of his thoughts to the pressure of Tyler's mouth on his.

_Kiss me senseless is right_.

Kurt felt himself moan lightly into Tyler's mouth, felt himself growing hard against the increased pressure from Tyler's leg.

"God, Ty," he grunted when he managed to pull his mouth away. "You're not playing fair."

Tyler just grinned wickedly at him. "Hey, you're the one with a girlfriend. I think fairness flew out the window months ago. You know we're not doing anything while you're still with Rachel." He shrugged and moved steps away instead of just inches, and Kurt had to fight the urge to pull him back, maybe turn and press him to the warm stone. He shivered at the thought, and let his head fall back against the side of the stoop while he listened to Tyler talk at him.

"I figure if I get you worked up enough, you'll decide that I'm worth it." Kurt knew Tyler was teasing, but he couldn't help feeling that there was something hurt behind Tyler's words.

"You are worth it," Kurt breathed into the dark. "And I'm not the one with all the rules. I told you, Rachel said it was okay."

"Okay for the two of you, maybe. But not okay with me." Tyler shrugged again. "Maybe it's selfish, but I think you're special and I kind of want you all to myself."

Kurt pushed himself off the wall and lunged at Tyler, holding him close and kissing him softly. "You're not selfish," Kurt whispered into his hair, where he still smelled faintly of sunscreen and aftershave. "And you're special, too, you know." And I think I might love you, like Rachel but so not like Rachel that I can't tell you yet. He took Tyler's hand and squeezed it. "I want this, too, you know. I just have to deal with my complicated shit first."

"I can tell you want it," Tyler said, running his eyes over Kurt's body and settling his gaze on Kurt's crotch.

"Yeah," Kurt huffed. "You sure you can't help me with that?"

Tyler shook his head. "Sorry, man. At least Rachel is better and less lonely than the cold shower I'm headed home to."

Kurt snorted, undignified, and rounded the corner to climb the stairs. "Bye, Ty," he smiled. "Talk with you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Tyler nodded before turning to head to the subway.

Kurt gathered the mail before climbing the stairs slowly. It got hotter the higher he got, and by the time he was unlocking the door, he didn't care whether Rachel was home or not; he was taking a cold shower anyway.

But Rachel was home, pacing the small space of open floor, cheeks high with color and hands shaking. When Kurt had pushed the door closed behind him, she threw herself at him, hands busy at his button and zipper and the hem of his shirt.

"Rach, what- wait-" he managed to blurt in the general direction of what he thought was her ear.

"Brian." She was attacking the side of his neck with a gentle scrape of her teeth, and Kurt moaned unintentionally. "He's a fucking tease."

"God," Kurt blurted. "Ty, too." He pulled Rachel close to him and tried not to thrust against her. "He doesn't want- oh-" He had to pause at the sharp bite of Rachel's fingernails against his chest. "He doesn't want to start something while you and I are still. Well, this," he finished in the instant before Rachel started moving, walking him back towards the bed. He went willingly because he thought he might go crazy if Rachel didn't freaking  _touch him_.

Rachel made quick work of his shorts and t-shirt, but Kurt fumbled with the button and zipper on her skirt; it didn't matter how many times they'd done this, he still felt a little awkward at the start of it, but he always settled down once Rachel was warm and soft against him and he knew what to do, where to touch and how to move and all the things that made Rachel come apart for him. He loved being able to please her that way, and it made his own release sweet with confidence.

"I know I'm not who you really want," Rachel said to him later, as they lay atop the tangle of sheets letting the window fan cool their sweaty skin, "but thank you."

Kurt stroked her hair and snuggled a little closer. "I don't think I'm who you really want, either," Kurt admitted. "You like Brian."

Rachel nodded against his chest. "Is it too soon to think that there's potential there? He's nice. Not pushy like a lot of the guys at school."

"You deserve not pushy." Kurt listened to the whir of the fan and the noise of the traffic through the open windows.

"So do you, baby." Rachel lifted her head to look at him, and her eyes looked sad. "You want Ty."

"Yeah," Kurt swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat.  
"This was the last time for us, wasn't it?" Rachel's voice was gentle, and a little sad.

Kurt blinked at tears in his eyes. "I hadn't- I don't- um. I don't know."

"Yes, you do," Rachel said, dropping a kiss on his cheek before pulling the sheet over them both. "It's time for you to follow your heart, baby. And time for me to figure out what my heart wants."

Kurt knew his tears were dripping into Rachel's hair, but he couldn't help it. "Thank you," he stuttered. "Tell me we're going to be okay."

"Oh, baby," Rachel chuckled lightly. "We're going to be just fine. We were each other's firsts, after all."

Kurt let Rachel hold him until they had both fallen asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Kurt woke when it was still dark, his arm stuck to his stomach with sweat and his feet tangled in the sheets. Rachel's side of the bed was empty, and he could see the lump of her out on the fire escape.

"Be careful out there," he said, voice gravelly, pulling the sheet over himself as he peered around the edge of the window.

"I'm not going to fall off," she sighed, stubborn like a child.

"I didn't think you would," he sighed, tugging on shorts and a t-shirt before climbing outside to join her. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, softly, into the still-heavy heat of the night. "No."

"I didn't think so." He snaked an arm over her shoulder. "I'm not- I mean- what did we agree to?"

Rachel sighed. "It's time for us to be with other people. We can't be each other's crutches, not if we really want to live our dreams."

Kurt nodded. "I know we're doing the right thing. I just- I feel kind of sad, I guess."

"Yeah." Rachel leaned into him, tucking herself into the curve of his body in a way that he knew would always feel intimate between them. "I'm not sure I know how to do this without you, though."

"Oh, Rach." He turned and wrapped his arms around her fully, then. "It's not goodbye or anything like that. You're still my best friend. We just- we just can't  _fuck_ anymore."

"God, you make it sound so trashy, when you say that." She smacked him lightly, teasingly, on his chest.

"You know it's never been like that between us." The emotion in his throat surprised him.

Rachel nodded against his shoulder. "I know. I just think I'm going to miss seeing you every day."

"You're welcome here any time." He closed his eyes, thinking about Tyler and how different it would feel, with someone besides Rachel in his space. In his bed. "Just call first, okay?"

"Always."

"Back to bed?" Kurt untangled himself from her body, and swung his legs back into the window.

"No," she replied. "I'm not really sleepy. I think I'm going to stay out here a little longer."

Kurt nodded. "Okay."

He crawled back into bed, tugging the sheet over himself and settling back into sleep, Rachel's scent surrounding him.

* * *

The first of September was still blistering hot. Fashion backwards or not, Kurt made his way to STEPS in the same khaki shorts, navy tank top and flip flops he'd worn to school that day. Even the polyester strap of his dance bag was too hot on his shoulder. Tyler was already there, leaning against the building scrolling for something on his phone, and Kurt peered at him over the top of his sunglasses. "Hey, baby. You're early."

Tyler pushed himself off from his perch and greeted Kurt with a barely chaste kiss on his lips. "I had partnering this afternoon, and the AC went out. It was too hot to even touch each other." He waggled his eyebrows. "So. Peter let us go early."

"Nice."

"And how was your day?"

"My playwriting class is going to kill me." Kurt tugged the door open, and Tyler slipped past him into the lobby.

"What makes you say that?" Tyler started up the stairs, and Kurt followed, their voices echoing in the emptiness of the stairwell.

"We have to write a scene each week, and offer it up for critique. I don't even know where to start. Professor Hunter said to write what we know, but that seems trite."

"What's trite about it? Makes sense to me."

"All I know is being a weird gay kid in a small town. But I'm more than that."

Tyler slung his arm over Kurt's shoulders and steered him past the group of very proper pre-teen ballerina wannabes waiting outside the small studio. "Of course you're more than that. But what's wrong with  _starting_ with what you know? You can always branch out from there."

"I still think playwriting is going to kill me."

Tyler just laughed, and held the dressing room door open for Kurt. "And I think you're going to be amazing at it, just like you're amazing at everything you try."

"Flatterer," Kurt sighed, but he kissed Tyler soundly again once the door was closed behind them.

* * *

_Skipping class tonight_ , Kurt texted to Tyler as he walked from playwriting to his voice lesson, rain dripping off his nose and onto the screen of his phone.  _Need to work on my scene._

Tyler's reply pinged as he was shedding his coat and backpack in the corner of the studio.  _I told you you'd be amazing at that. I'll stop for dessert on my way home._

Kurt just smirked, and texted back  _bring dinner; I want_ _ **you**_ _for dessert_.

"What're you doing?" Tyler propped himself up on his hand, trying to see the papers Kurt had stacked against his knees.

"If I drop my Advanced Shakespeare class, I can add Playwriting II." He tapped his pencil against his course catalog. "I just- I don't know if I  _should_."

"What will make you happier? Shakespeare or writing?"

"Writing." Kurt almost hated to admit it, given how much he'd complained back in the fall.

"So what's the problem?" Tyler took Kurt's pencil and papers and leaned over Kurt to set them on the floor. Then he pulled Kurt against him, kissing his neck and jawline.

"Admitting that I would rather write plays than perform them would be like you suddenly deciding to join the circus. Or something like it." Kurt leaned into the pressure from Tyler's mouth and body.

"Not the  _right_ kind of ambition for a NYADA man, huh?"

Kurt shook his head against Tyler's lips, his reply lost to the kind of kiss Kurt had thought would get less hot as the months went by, but that  _so_ wasn't the case. He pulled away to breathe. "No more talking," he whispered into Tyler's ear before moving to trail hot, wet kisses down Tyler's stomach.

"Not even to make  _sure_  you're ready for a second -  _oh._ "

Kurt grinned, and tightened his hand around Tyler's cock. "Do you  _really_ need to ask me that?"

"Guess. Not." Kurt loved the way he could reduce Tyler to a quivering mess of speechlessness with just a touch, loved the strength and hardness of his body. It had been awkward, the first few times, because Kurt had been so used to Rachel's petite, round softness. But once he'd finally surrendered to the aching need he had, sliding into and against Tyler's body had felt like coming home.  _No more girls,_ he'd sighed to Tyler in the aftermath of their first time, the two of them tangled and panting but startlingly ready to go again.

_Good_ , Tyler had told him, kissing him hard.

It had been like that since, the two of them like fuel for each other's need. Intense and sparkling to the point where they finally had to establish a no weeknight sleepovers rule, because Kurt couldn't think about anything  _but_ sex when they were together, and he couldn't afford the sleepless nights any more than Tyler could.

Kurt kept moving, sliding between Tyler's legs and taking him in his mouth. How he'd ever thought he'd be able to give up men, he didn't know. Because the noise Tyler made  _every time_ he bottomed out in the back of Kurt's throat made Kurt shiver uncontrollably with want.

" _God_ , Kurt!" Tyler bucked his hips, and Kurt grabbed, trying to hold him still. He almost lost focus when there was sharp pressure and . . .  _pain?_  Kurt almost pulled off, but something - _someone -_ was holding him still.

_Oh_. Tyler's hands, firm against the back of his head, tugging on his hair.

_Oh_. He couldn't move, and Tyler just kept moving under him,  _into him_ , and it was hot and Kurt felt like he couldn't get  _enough_ of the feeling, the odd balance of having both the upper hand and no power at all. He kept working, licking and sucking as best he could with little air and no chance to reposition. He couldn't quite get to the angle that he knew Tyler liked best, but he supposed that it didn't really matter in the end, because Tyler still came, hard and hot down Kurt's throat, and Kurt just kept sucking and swallowing until he was done.

"Are you okay?" Tyler patted at Kurt's head where he'd finally rested it against Tyler's hip. "I didn't mean- I don't know where that came from. I just  _had_ to keep you there."

Kurt blushed a little - _god, really, he was going to be 21 soon, enough with the damn blushing_. "It was fine. I, um. I think I liked it."

"More or less than playwriting?"

"You're a funny man." Kurt thought for a minute, and shifted the unreleased weight of his own erection as best he could against Tyler's leg. "More."

"Good," Tyler sighed, running a hand through Kurt's hair. "It feels like you could use a little attention. What do you want?"

Kurt hauled himself up, stretched himself over Tyler's body and pressed his hands over both of Tyler's wrists. "I want to fuck you, and I want to do this." He squeezed his hands, and felt all of the muscles in Tyler's arms relax. "Is that okay?"

"God,  _yes_ ," Tyler gasped, and Kurt dove in for a kiss.

* * *

Kurt knocked tentatively on Professor Hunter's partly open office door before peeking his head around. "You wanted to see me, Professor?"

"Yes, Kurt." She settled her glasses on the bridge of her nose and waved at the empty chair in front of her desk. "Your scenes are coming along nicely. I don't usually have students write a whole body of work over two semesters. They usually just write individual scenes, but yours work well together."

Kurt shrugged. "I had a lot to say, I guess."

"How are you finding the rest of your classes?"

"They're fine." Which was true, they were  _fine_. They kept him engaged and busy, but none of it was what he'd thought it would be, and while he knew he was talented he was starting to realize that he didn't have the same drive to perform as many of his classmates did.

"Do you see yourself taking what you've learned here and translating it into a career?" Professor Hunter started at him, and he almost wanted to look away.

"No," Kurt said, surprising himself. "I mean, being a star was always my dream. But I think-" he paused to gather his thoughts, to pick out the things that had been nagging at him throughout the winter as he'd worked on his scenes at coffeeshops and the library and in his bed, Tyler sometimes reading over his shoulder as he wrote. "I think I have more to say, more to  _do_ than just be a star."

"Okay." Professor Hunter sat back in her chair and pushed a flyer across her desk to him. "I think you should enter your script into the Kennedy Center regional festival. It's a strong piece of work, Kurt, and the festival could open some doors for you."

Kurt blinked at her. "But I'm not a playwright."

Her eyes softened. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"It's just-" he glanced around, almost looking for ears in the walls. "This place doesn't support dreams like  _this_." He poked at the flyer. "I mean, I came here for theater. To admit that I don't know if I want that anymore? That's like failing, and I've worked too hard to fail."

"Oh, darling. You are  _not_ a failure. And just because you enter the festival doesn't mean that you need to give up any part of your dream." She lowered her voice and beckoned for him to lean closer. "Dare I say, even if you decide to cast your lot on Broadway, you'll be a lot more well-rounded than many of your counterparts by having written a script and put it up for criticism that way."

"I'll think about it." He knew he wasn't going to get out of her office without giving her  _something_.

"Good," she said with a smile. "And I expect to see your name on the list for my advanced seminar in the fall. I won't take thinking about it as an acceptable answer."

"O-okay," Kurt replied, taking the flyer and tucking it into his backpack. He wasn't about to fight with Professor Hunter over that one.

* * *

"You  _have_ to do it," Rachel said, handing the flyer back to him. "What you've showed me of your script is amazing. Much better than the one some girl in my department submitted last year."

"You're only bitter because she didn't cast you in it," Kurt teased. "And no, there isn't a part for you in mine before you ask."

"Of course there is. The sort-of girfr-  _oh_." Rachel just gaped at him for a minute.

"Yeah. Exactly. The sort of girlfriend. Of the flaming gay boy."

Rachel shook her head and poked at her scone. "How did I not realize that you wrote a play about us?"

"It's not  _really_ about us. I mean, the girl isn't nearly as talented as you are, and the boy is pretty closeted for a long time. So. Not exactly us."

"What does Tyler think?"

"He likes it. I think maybe he wishes I'd written it about him instead of about you, but he'd never say that."

"Are you doing to enter? You  _have_  to. And don't give me any bullshit about you not being a playwright. God, Kurt. Why can't you see that writing this has made you happier than any of your other classes since we  _got_  here?" Rachel stared at him, ferocious and intense. "I  _wish_  I felt about  _anything_ the way you feel about writing."

"It's not that easy," Kurt sighed. Why didn't anyone  _understand_ that he couldn't just walk away from his dream without a backwards glance?

"None of this is supposed to be easy," Rachel told him. "When my dream of NYADA didn't turn out the way I'd planned, you helped me find a new one. And I like where I am. So thank you, Kurt. But now it's my turn to help you. You don't want to be a star. You don't even want to act. I can see that. I hear it when you talk about your classes. But you want to write. You like it. You won't  _lose_  anything by taking the risk. You're not giving up on NYADA, you're just  _adding_ to what you're already doing."

"You think?"

"I  _know_ ," she said with surety, patting his hand. "You'll be just fine. Now. Are you going to enter the festival, or do I have to do it for you?"


	9. Chapter 9

**February, 2018**

Kurt waved the bartender over and signalled for another drink, and struggled to hear Rachel through the phone over the din of the bar. "It's okay, baby," he told her. "Like I don't _know_ what it's like to get a show up. I just missed you tonight, is all."

"I promise, I'll come this weekend. I  _promise_." He could hear yelling in the background.

Kurt nodded in thanks when his gin and tonic appeared, and he made a note to tip the bartender especially well. "You better go, before I get you in trouble."

"Oh, it's just the choreographer. He's a  _bear_ ," she laughed. "But I think he likes me because I keep up pretty well."

"You do better than keep up and we both know it. Just- let me know when you're coming, and I'll leave a ticket at Will-Call. Unless you have a plus-one I don't know about?"

"Still a single girl in the big city. You  _know_  you'll be my first call when I finally do meet Mr. Right. We should have coffee, though, before the weekend. It's been  _weeks_." Music started up on Rachel's end, and Kurt nodded even though she couldn't see him.

"Text me the time and place. You need to go before Mr. Bear has one of our heads. Love you, Rach."

"Love you too, Kurt."

He ended the call and let his phone dangle between his fingers. It had been such an intense couple of weeks, in the rush to get his play workshopped, and he'd been working almost around the clock making final edits to the script. He thought that what his cast had finally brought to life onstage that night had been pretty close to as perfect as he was going to get things, really, and the handful of investors he'd been able to schmooze afterwards had all been positive. He felt good, excited for the future of what he hoped was going to be his first show to make it  _out_ of workshop.

"Long day?" A voice drifted from beside him, and he turned to stare at an impossibly young-looking man with dark curls, freckles, and sea-green eyes.

"Long week," Kurt sighed, letting his phone drop to the bar. "Long year, really."

"Pity," the man said. "It's only February."

"Yeah, well. With any luck, things will get better from here."

"Actor or dancer?" The man let his eyes roam over Kurt's body, and he was glad that he'd changed out of his suit and into more casual clothes before coming out.

"Neither." For a long time, admitting that he  _wasn't_ a performer had hurt. But he had settled into a comfortable space, now, with his writing and what it meant to him, and the sting wasn't nearly as strong as it had once been. "I'm a playwright."

"Mm. Anything I would have seen?"

"Highly doubtful. I'm not famous or anything." He wasn't even close, even though his first workshop had generated some minor buzz. But he'd still been in school then, and he hadn't pursued the avenues that would have moved the show off-Broadway.

"You will be," the man said with a nod and a tip of his nearly empty glass of something dark.

"Can I get you another?" Kurt tilted his head to the man's glass, and at the answering smile he beckoned to the bartender. "Club soda with lime for me, and whatever he's having."

"Coke," the man said with a shrug. "I don't drink," he said to Kurt when the bartender moved away again.

"You're 21, right?" Because Kurt might be a lot of things, but 6 years in the city meant he wasn't naiive, and he knew when he was being cruised for a pick-up.

"In November. Forgive me, but you look too young to be a not-famous playwright."

Kurt rolled his eyes, which he  _knew_ made him look twelve. "I'm 24. Not ancient, but old enough."

"What's your show about?"

"Are you an actor?" Kurt was maybe a little short and sharp with the man, but he was also used to being hit up for parts or advice, when people found out he was in the industry.

"No," the boy shook his head. "English major, at Marymount."

"Oh, really? My best friend went there. We came out here together, for college. She was in their theater program."

"She's your girl on the phone?"

Kurt sighed. "You heard that, huh? You'd think, after all this time here, I'd have learned that nothing is private. Oh, well. You can take the boy out of Ohio, but you can't take the Ohio out of the boy."

The man blinked, swallowed from the bubbling glass of soda the bartender had dropped off moments before. "Ohio. Where?"

"Lima. West of Columbus, north of Dayton. Middle of nowhere, really. Why?"

"I grew up in Columbus." He held out his hand. "I'm Aaron."

"Kurt." Aaron's hand was cool from his drink, and Kurt thought that he felt Aaron hesitate in his shaking.

"You- where did you go to high school?"

"McKinley High, in Lima, but I spent half my Junior year at Dalton Academy, in Westerville."

"No shit." Aaron bit at his lip, and he looked both too impossibly young  _and_ too impossibly aware, and Kurt felt his breath catch as Aaron kept talking.

"I graduated from there. You can't- you're not- um."

"What?" This boy -  _man_ \- had Kurt absolutely captivated.

"You're not  _Kurt Hummel_ , are you?"

Kurt blinked at him. Held his breath for a second. Kicked his brain in gear. "How do you- why would you-"

"I spent three years at Dalton listening to the other guys in Warblers talk about you, like you were this rare bird or magical creature. A part of Dalton, and outside of it at the same time. And I thought . . ." Aaron's voice trailed off, and Kurt couldn't help it, he  _had_ to touch him, so he rested his fingers gently on the back of Aaron's hand.

"You thought what?"

"I thought that if we'd known each other then, maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone at Dalton."

Kurt nodded. "Yeah. I hear that."

He felt movement behind him and startled lightly at the press of lips against the back of his neck.

"Hey, baby." Tyler's voice was low in his ear, and Kurt tipped his head back to smile up at him. "Did you completely floor them?"

"I think so," Kurt said. "I hope so, in any case."

Tyler dropped his dance bag to the floor and kicked it under Kurt's stool. "I'm sorry I missed it."

Kurt shrugged. "It's okay. Rachel missed it too." He turned to Aaron, who was watching everything with thinly veiled interest. "Aaron, this is Tyler. Tyler, Aaron."

Tyler reached around to shake Aaron's hand. "Boyfriend?" Aaron asked.

Kurt waited for Tyler to laugh before he joined in. "A long time ago," Kurt said.

"Not  _that_ long ago," Tyler ribbed.

Kurt fiddled with the napkin under his glass. "Turns out that ditching a brief turn at heterosexuality for a long-term thing with my best gay friend wasn't the the best thing for either of us. But," he said, leaning into Tyler's arm across his shoulder, "we're still gay best friends, so." He eyeballed Aaron, feeling ballsy and blatant and  _so tired_ of playing games. "He gets right of refusal on any cute boys who try to pick me up in bars."

"I wasn't-" Aaron stammered, then blushed. "Okay," he sighed heavily. "Yes. I was trying to pick you up."

''You're  _adorable,_ " Tyler said, nudging Kurt and settled half onto his bar stool with him.

"Thank you, I think." Aaron said, flashing Tyler a shy smile, and Kurt felt his stomach flip-flop.

_What the hell am I even thinking_? He didn't think he'd said the words out loud, but he must have, because Tyler leaned in and whispered in his ear.

"You haven't been with anyone in almost a year. Just take him home already."

It wasn't the  _taking him home_  part of the equation that was giving him pause. It was the unexpected Ohio connection, and the odd way that Aaron was affecting Kurt. It was the thrill of his night going well, and the slight buzz from his drinks. And Aaron's  _eyes_.

_Shit. Here goes nothing._

"Would you like to get dessert?" Kurt smiled at Aaron.

"That's not  _taking him home_ ," Tyler hissed, but Kurt just waved him off.

"I'll call you tomorrow. If you think you'll make the show this weekend, let me know and I'll leave you a ticket," he said, slipping off his stool and holding his hand out to Aaron. "Shall we?"

Aaron shrugged into his coat and nodded. "I thought you'd never ask."

**June 2020**

"Babe? Hey? You almost ready? The car is here." Aaron's voice drifted from the front door to where Kurt was standing in front of the bedroom mirror with two ties in his hand.

"I can't decide," he replied, taking both of them with him to the kitchen. "Which one?"

Aaron ran his eyes up and down the length of Kurt's body, nodding at his slim-cut black suit and crisp silver shirt. Then he flicked his gaze back and forth from the solid purple tie to the black with tiny silver checks. "Black," he said, holding the door open. "You can put it on in the car."

"You're sure I won't look like I'm going to a funeral?" Kurt followed Aaron down the narrow stairs to the entryway and out into the brightness of the early evening.

"No. You'll look like a handsome playwright at his off-Broadway debut," he said, holding the door to the car and letting Kurt slide inside first.

"I feel like pinching myself," he said, knotting his tie with practiced efficiency as the car pulled into traffic.

"Would it make you more nervous or less if I told you that my AP students are coming tonight?"

Kurt rested his head against the smooth leather of the seat back. "Will you still give them good grades if they don't like it?"

Aaron stared at him. "No, I'll fail them," he deadpanned before knocking Kurt with his shoulder. "Of  _course_  I'll still give them good grades. But they're going to love it because you're _amazing_."

"I'm really nervous."

"I know you are, baby. But you've been doing this long enough. You  _know_  it wouldn't have gotten out of workshop if it wasn't  _good_. It's going to be great. Just breathe, okay?" Aaron ran his thumb over the back of Kurt's hand, and Kurt shivered a little.

"Be careful what you start. We only have five more blocks." Kurt smiled, and let his mind wander to later, when his family was back at their hotel and their friends were all gone home, and he could have Aaron all to himself.

"Hey, I could get you off in five blocks."

"You  _are_  talented, yes. But I honestly don't think that would help my nerves any." Kurt gripped Aaron's hand hard, and tried to focus his breathing so he didn't hyperventilate. Because passing out at your own premiere would be  _really_ embarrassing.

"I love you," Aaron said as the car pulled up in front of the theater. "I love you and I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, baby," Kurt whispered, but Aaron was already gone, moving out of the car and into the small crowd in front of the theater.

It was largely friends and family, and a clump of people with notebooks and tiny recorders. Kurt hadn't expected any kind of showing, really, because it was  _just_ off-Broadway. But he followed Aaron through the crowd, stopping to hug his dad and Carole, and wave to Rachel, who was talking to Finn. He thought he saw Tyler lingering on the edge of things with the chorus boy he'd been dating since before Christmas. And then someone was in his way, slightly pushy and offering a hand for shaking.

"Mr. Hummel, I'm Frank Jessop from the  _Times_. A few questions?"

Kurt took a breath, turned on his smile, and pointedly ignored the butterflies in his stomach. "Mr. Jessop. Of course. What can I tell you about my little play?"


End file.
